Last night as we headed home, we rounded the corner at a major intersection (one that is known to be relatively dangerous thanks to the bus stops that flank its corners and the people who frequent the stops), to see the flashing red-and-whites of a fire truck approaching. We - John and Iz and Sydney and I - waited for the fire truck to cut a path to wherever it was headed, only to see the truck pull up at the bus stop immediately on our right. I was in the passenger seat and couldn't make out why they were stopping ... no car wreck, no scuffling on the sidewalk. I scanned the scene over and over until my eyes fell on the dark pile of human being lying alone on the sidewalk in front of one of the benches.
Soon an ambulance joined the fire truck and traffic moved again, looping around the trucks in their diagonal stance in front of the bus stop. As we passed the truck John wondered out loud, "Who is it?" and I watched as a fireman startled the person who was stretched out on the sidewalk with a familiar duffel bag for a pillow, the face in clear view. "It's Brian*," I replied. And John pulled the car over immediately.
We all sat there for a minute, wondering what to do. It was 9:15 at night, our baby strapped into her car seat in the back in her pajamas, wide-eyed with exhaustion. We looked at one another and John asked me if I was sure I'd seen it right, that it was indeed our friend, and first Iz volunteered to go check it out and then I told them both to go. I watched them approach the scene from the back seat where I crawled to be with Sydney. After ten minutes I moved the car, pulling up behind the ambulance which would block my presence and hopefully help keep things uncomplicated. The lights flashed red and white over the face of my sweet baby, who smiled at me and pointed to Iz as he walked up to the passenger side window.
Some of you have heard me mention here that my husband has planted a church in a local park where some homeless people congregate. Several of them sleep in the park and have formed a little protective group. They share what they have, they fellowship together, and they watch one another's backs. A friend of ours met Brian one day as Brian washed cars in a grocery store parking lot and brought him to a small group that met on the benches there, where he shared his story over the coming weeks. As of yesterday he's only been on the streets six months. In some ways he reminds me of my own husband: a boyish enthusiasm for the things that interest him - in his case music - a face much younger than his age (42), a friendliness that is uncommon to many people who live in this city, homeless or not. And so we ask the question "what happened?" and "why?" Here is this man with an education, with people skills, a hard worker, even a nice face and sweet demeanor, and he is living in a park in Los Angeles.
The answer is that Brian is an addict.
And so last night he laid down in the gutter and all but gave up. Someone saw him lying in the street in the path of the city bus and called an ambulance. By the time we saw him he had moved up onto the curb and to me when I first saw him it looked like he was just chilling there waiting on the bus, his headphones on, his head on his duffel bag and his ankles stretched out and crossed. When a fireman walked up on him he was startled awake and that's when I saw his face.
Later from the inside of my car I saw Brian bob and weave between John and the firefighters who were trying to help him, the herky jerky movements of a skittish dog, the familiar Gatorade bottle clutched in his hand. In that moment I could not help but look into the face of my own daughter and try to think of Brian as the child he once was, how there was a time in his life when he was pure and maybe there was someone for him to look to when he was afraid or upset. Someone to feed him when he was hungry, to shush him when he cried, to try to shield him from the arrows of sorrow and pain. I wonder how he ended up alone in the gutter, rejecting even the friendships he's made in the park. I wonder why we happened upon him in that moment.
Through the side window of the ambulance I saw Brian collapse into John's arms, weeping. I wonder what we could offer him in this moment of desperation other than our friendship. In my soul I long to give Brian a home, to get him help for his addictions, to see his life transformed, to "fix" him.
Once upon a time the only contact I'd had with homeless people were the ones who sat outside Marshall Fields at Christmastime when my family would visit downtown Chicago to see the lights and ice skate. Every year my younger sister would empty her piggy bank and fill her pockets with the change to give to the people who languished there with signs, in wheelchairs, behind open guitar and saxophone cases. I stood back as she fed her money into their vestibules, hoping she would not linger too long over any one person because I found them to be frightening. They were this anonymous crowd, this nameless brotherhood bound together because they were dirty, they were broken and lame, they had no home. They were not like us.
Can I just say for the record that I think "religion" is a crock? Religion - as I define it - is pursuing tradition just for the sake of tradition. As a "pastor's wife" (oh good grief do not even get me started on THAT crap "title" game people play) I have had the unfortunate opportunity to see the very worst in people who think they are actually doing "the right thing" (which to many is protecting the little bubble they have built for themselves and named "the church"). When people ask me what I think about God and Jesus and all that I try to be very careful in how I respond. I don't even write about it very much. Because you know what? I very frankly don't want to be automatically assigned to this culturally sucktastic group of people who call themselves Christians when they have no idea what they are talking about. They schedule their lives around church on Sunday, they condemn others, they try to make it appear that if you pray correctly you will have success and money, your children will never get sick or die, and of course you will never make mistakes. You know the types. They are loud, they are on television and the radio saying all kinds of crazy things. They are on street corners handing out pamphlets or wearing sandwich boards or screaming that "GOD HATES (fill in the blank)!!!!" They have no answer for the people who challenge their beliefs, who ask what they think about this cruel world and why it sucks so much, how there can be a loving God when so many horrible things happen every single day.
This was not how Jesus rolled. The people he hung with were the outcasts of society. They were poor, broken, imperfect. They put their feet in their mouths. They made mistakes. They had questions. They said to him, "If you're a Rabbi, and if you're the son of God, why in the HELL would you want to hang around ME?" And do you know what he did? He opened his hands to them. He told them that they mattered to him. He fed them, he healed them of sickness, he listened to their stories, he got on a first-name basis. He answered their questions.
He didn't walk down the street on the other side. He didn't thrust a dollar bill out of the car window to placate his guilty conscience. He didn't wave his hand and say bullcrap things like "When God closes a door, he opens a window!" or "Everything happens for a reason!" He took the time to sit down beside people and hear their stories. He didn't waste time on what they deserved, the consequences of the choices they'd made, the mistakes that got them into the situations they were in. He offered the same life to them that he did to those who were pretty, who had made good choices in life, who even knew who he was. There was no application process, no requirements that someone be a good person to have a conversation with Jesus. He wanted them all, even the ones who were broken.
And so here and now is this man with a name. Who so desperately needed someone to look past how high he was, how dirty, how lost. To respond. There we were at a time that was inconvenient for us, a sleepy baby in the backseat, homework waiting for us at home, bellies full of homecooked meal and thoughts on other things. I do not tell you this story to try and convince you that we are such wonderful people. Jesus compels us out of the car, to open our hand to this man who is alone. In that moment he does not need to hear about his sins, about how he's gotten himself into this mess, how he needs to go to rehab and get a job and an apartment and reach his potential. He needs someone to tell him that he is loved exactly as he is in that very moment. At his lowest. That the same Jesus who would have sat down beside him on the curb last night and who knows his name gave up his life so that he and the rest of us could have something worth living for.
Later in the kitchen, Brian taken away by ambulance to a hospital, Sydney asleep in her crib, the three of us stood and wondered how this could happen. How do people get so lost and so crushed? What is the answer? I do not know, but my response is that God loves the broken. I always imagine that those who are shattered are the ones that God weeps for, as we hope that maybe somewhere Brian has parents who weep for him, who wonder after him, who long to hear from their son and be given the opportunity to help him, to bring him back home.
Over the past few weeks I've been playing the new Regina Spektor cd over and over again in my car. She is brilliant. One song in particular struck a chord with me and I find myself shuffling through the lyrics in my head all the time. I guess it's a combination of the things I've seen that makes it resonate: God as a joke, and God as someone we desperately hope is out there when things go so terribly wrong. At the end she turns the whole thing on its head and says "we're laughing with God" and maybe that's how she feels, that she is laughing with God at all the silly mortal things that go on in this messed up world.
That is not where I am today. Today I am weeping with God. I am wishing I was more gifted, that I had more money, that there was something more I could do to help the people who are put in my path. His answer to me is that he is the one who can help, and he can use me to do it if I am willing.
All I have to do is be in the right place at the right time and let him do the rest.
*Not this person's real name.
No one’s laughing at God
When they’re starving or freezing or so very poor
No one laughs at God
When the doctor calls after some routine tests
No one’s laughing at God
When it’s gotten real late
And their kid’s not back from the party yet
No one laughs at God
When their airplane start to uncontrollably shake
No one’s laughing at God
When they see the one they love hand in hand with someone else
And they hope that they're mistaken
And they say we got some bad news, sir
No one’s laughing at God
When there’s a famine or fire or flood
But God can be funny
At a cocktail party when listening to a good God-themed joke, or
Or when the crazies say He hates us
And they get so red in the head you think they’re ‘bout to choke
God can be funny,
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious
Ha ha
Ha ha
No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God
When they’ve lost all they’ve got
And they don’t know what for
No one laughs at God on the day they realize
That the last sight they’ll ever see is a pair of hateful eyes
No one’s laughing at God when they’re saying their goodbyes
But God can be funny
At a cocktail party when listening to a good God-themed joke, or
Or when the crazies say He hates us
And they get so red in the head you think they’re ‘bout to choke
God can be funny,
When told he’ll give you money if you just pray the right way
And when presented like a genie who does magic like Houdini
Or grants wishes like Jiminy Cricket and Santa Claus
God can be so hilarious, ha ha
No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one laughs at God in a hospital
No one laughs at God in a war
No one laughing at God in hospital
No one’s laughing at God in a war
No one’s laughing at God when they’re starving or freezing or so very poor
No one’s laughing at God
No one’s laughing at God
No one’s laughing at God
We’re all laughing with God
This really touched me.
We have SO MUCH to talk about in a couple weeks! In the meantime, here's a link to a blog written by one of my best friends from college. I think you two would really respect each other's politics and opinions.
http://www.theheidaway.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Emily | Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 02:24 PM
http://frankviola.wordpress.com/2009/08/18/why-i-love-the-church-in-praise-of-gods-eternal-purpose/
(Also.)
Posted by: Emily | Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 02:40 PM
Long time reader, first comment... Beautiful post. I don't think we will ever understand why people are the way they are or how they get to that point. I do know that when people like you and your husband come into their life they are lucky. God bless you.
Posted by: Dana | Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 05:31 PM
AMEN!!! Here's a cliche for you... "All we need is love"... We overthink it WAAAAAY too much! If we look at Jesus and realize the kind of love he dished out and did our best to mimic that daily, the world would be a MUCH different place... And you are SOOO right about religion and "religious" people... I've come to find they can be some of the most hateful people on earth... If we're really going to change lives and get people into RELATIONSHIPS with God, then we have to get our butts out of the pews and do some serious LOVING! Even if it makes us feel uncomfortable... even if it costs money... even if it means we have to change our routines... I'm so SICK of people worshiping the wrong things and not seeing that God didn't mean for us to go into a building called a "church" on Sunday and think that's what church is... AH! Thanks for lighting that much more of a fire under me! You and John are in our prayers and you both are such great role models to us as we begin this journey into ministry!
Posted by: Nora | Thursday, September 10, 2009 at 08:38 PM
Wow. I can definitely resonate with some of those feelings. Lord come and bring your children home. Come Lord Jesus come.
Posted by: Joshua Rigsby | Friday, September 11, 2009 at 10:43 PM
P.S. Is it okay if I link to this post?
Posted by: Joshua Rigsby | Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 07:26 AM